Days Untold
by IrksomeIrene
Summary: Back stories, drabbles, one shots, and other random stuff from In The Valley Shades of Death. Can be read on their own.
1. Chapter 1

Molly Hooper had a surprisingly long and complicated relationship with cigarette smoke.

When she was a child and still known largely as "Little Lizzy Hooper," she loved the smell of cigarettes. Specifically, the scent of Player's No. 6; her dad's favorite. He'd had to switch when they stopped making them in the early 90's but she'd never forget that particular scent. It smelled of home. It smelled of looming ends.

After her mother died, her father went from a pack every week or two depending on how stressful work was, to a pack a day. The scent that once lingered lightly in the cushions of his favorite chair and curled about their humble home like a lazy cat turned into clouds of smog in every room and butts littering every inch of their property. Still, though it was so thick little Little Lizzy thought her hair would still be smelling of Player's when she was as old and wrinkly as a prune, it was the smell of home and of her loving father. It did, however, become the source of much grumbling as her teen years crept upon her, despite her fondness for it.

People were more enlightened about the risks of tobacco in the mid 90's when Mr. Hooper was first diagnosed with oral cancer. But gentle recommendations to ease off the fags from a waify doctor with a posh accent that barely saw fit to make eye contact did little to convince the stubborn, working class man with grease permanently etched into the creases of his heavy hands. He'd never quite recovered from the loss of his soul mate and had less than no idea what to do with Molly as she barreled head first into puberty. A posh doctor with a nice car and a stay at home wife to mind his kids didn't know the first thing about being a widowed single father and if fags helped him get through the day, then he'd keep smoking like a damn chimney to keep himself sane for his little girl. Even if the surgeries to remove the tumors left the lower half of his face rather mutilated and gave him a bloody terrible lisp even his best mates could barely understand him through, he was alive and his little Lizzy didn't flinch a bit at kissing his scarred cheeks nearly every night before bed.

Sad then, that it was lung cancer that got him in the end.

After that, Molly Hooper (there was no one around to call her "Lizzy," anymore) went away to university and left behind her love of permeating cigarette smoke. She spent the first half of her time at school disdaining the fags that took her father and the drink that murdered her mother. She dogged through her studies, through the classism and sexism of her professors and peers, through the "I'm sure it's just a phase" she always got from her academic planning councilor who—without fail—suggested a switch to nursing on every visit. She held her head high and kept her humor through the pity when people realized she was poor, realized she was an orphan, realized she didn't really have any friends despite her cheery disposition. She worked part time and odd jobs to pay her way. She managed scholarships and carved out a place for herself. But every Hooper had a vice, a little devil to lean on when things were hard—when there wasn't anyone else to count on.

It was with the end in sight that Molly felt the weary weight of it all. And all it took was a half polite invitation to a party from her roommate to rekindle Molly Hooper's complex relationship with deadly vices. The music had been far too loud. The people inside far too rowdy, far too familiar with each other. She recognized so many faces, so many people; but no one recognized her. And why should they? She wasn't anyone.

Eventually, she'd sought the relief of some fresh air, lingering outside, unsure if she was supposed to wait for her roommate to leave or if the social rules allowed her to duck out without a fuss. (The other girl _had_ been rather quick to vanish into the crowd, rather blatantly ditching Molly at the door.) Then the drifting whiffs of tobacco had curled about her, purring against her senses like the lazy cat she remembered from a lifetime ago. There were still plenty of people who smoked all about campus, it wasn't as if it were the first time she'd smelt burning tobacco since her father's passing. But for some reason—perhaps the fingers of whiskey she'd liberated from the kitchen horde and quickly downed, perhaps the looming mid-terms she wasn't entirely sure she was at all prepared for, perhaps the nerves that still shook her from the humiliation she'd endured from a particularly ancient professor—these teasing whiffs outside a party well on its way to becoming a rager, they struck a cord in her.

 _Her mother's hair looked properly copper in the sun that filtered through their living room window, into the tiny room. It was mussed from her cleaning rampage, the loose wisps catching the light to make a halo about her head. Her father was a giant compared to her mother—but everyone looked giant compared to her mother, really. He wasn't just taller than her, though, he was_ bigger _. He was a brick house of a man, not an inch of him soft. He'd worked hard, hard labor all his life and it showed. Lots of folks thought her father was a bit terrifying, a_ bad sort _. But here, having a shuffle about the room with his little wife, his head dipped low to tuck against her ruffled head, murmuring into her hair, making her giggle and slap his shoulder with her bright yellow washing gloves still on and utterly forget her tears of frustration; he was simply a man very much in love._

She had forgotten that moment. She had forgotten that moment of peaceful happiness and that broke her heart. With open arms, she welcomed cigarettes back into her life, filling her lungs with them in her father's stead. It quickly became a bit of a game of Russian roulette, however, as sometimes the smoking brought peaceful little moments of her childhood back to the forefront of her mind and sometimes... sometimes they brought back the long nights of listening to her father sob in his chair in the living room, smoking cigarette after cigarette as if to burn the tears from his eyes. When they started bringing the memories of doctors and hospital rooms and the eight month death that dragged out without a bit of mercy, Molly found a friend in whiskey.

Never enough to be a real problem—never like the binge drinking so prevalent with some of her peers—but enough to take the edge off of the bad moments. Enough to avoid the problems, numb the loneliness a bit, enough to let her pretend she was alright. (She'd never know her father had done much the same through the years, when the quiet was simply too much.)

Then she failed her first class. Despite her years of diligent hard word, despite her years and years of excellent work, of pristine academic achievement, every idiot of authority clucked their tongue with some sort of grown up variant of, "Well, I did tell you so, you poor sweet girl. Have you thought about nursing?" Well, they could all go straight to hell. Molly Hooper did not quit on her dreams. Molly Hooper did not quit, full stop.

She dabbled with a few helpful aides, various medications meant to focus the mind, and found Adderall was, by and large, the most effective and alarmingly easy to get her hands on. Balancing work and academia was much easier when she hardly needed to sleep any more, when she could get a little pick-me-up whenever she felt herself fading. A bit of chewing gum during the day, a mouth guard at night, and she wouldn't even have to worry about long term damage to her body! Cigarettes, whiskey, and a steady dosage of Adderall fueled Molly through the home stretch of her uni days. And through those last years at uni, wrapped up in the scent of tobacco once again, Molly had felt rather like her father was watching over her.

The unpleasantness of slowly weaning herself off the Adderall turned her off her other vices for a brief period, though her dislike of tobacco still wasn't as strong as it had been after her father's passing. A balancing of the unhealthy relationship with the silent killers.

Then Sherlock _bloody_ Holmes had waltzed into her life, chain smoking his way through NSY cases and the withdrawal of seven percent solutions. Needless to say, the new association of Sherlock to the scent of burning tobacco did _not_ simplify Molly's complex relationship with cigarettes.

To this day, Molly could never seem to make up her mind about the scent. Mostly, she hated it; even if a wave of nostalgia occasionally tried to knock her off her feet on the rare times she passed by the smokers' benches. Cigarettes had tied themselves to men she loved dearly, men that died long before their time in very ugly, heart breaking ways. But as the spring air of London carded its fingers through her jumper, strong breezes pulling at her hair, her eyes closed to the world as she stood nearly unnoticed on her perch, she found some comfort in the sweet, sweet scent of Sebastian's tobacco.

Sebastian Moran didn't buy his cigarettes like Sherlock and her father. Moran was quite picky about his tobacco; had some friend send him a parcel of it from some secret place he'd not name (though she did very much enjoy the faces he made when she guessed at purposefully outlandish points of origin). Maybe it was this mystical tobacco that made the smoke so sweet, so unique. He even rolled his own, not bothering with filters, and kept them in a battered cigarette case.

" _If I live long enough for the cigarettes to kill me, I'll be a lucky man."_ He'd said the first and last time he caught her looking at him a bit worried while he smoked on her back step. Never again did she hesitate to love the scent of his tobacco, never again did she have one bit of conflict over Moran's purring tobacco.

"Makin' me nervous, Hooper," he drawled. He'd come pluck her from the edge if she lingered too long. In the early days, it had been more often that not that he had to do so. She still sometimes lingered until he came and got her, secretly glad for the reassurance that he would pull her back from her own dangerous self when she need.

But not today. Today was not a bad day. So, instead, she opened her eyes, took in the vista of bustling London before her, slowly from right to left before her gaze wandered down to the street so very far below. She couldn't make out the stain on the pavement anymore; not from here, at least. The world was moving on from Sherlock Holmes. And perhaps that was for the better.


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you think the roof counts as a fifth floor?" Molly asked in lieu of a proper 'hello' as she stepped onto roof, letting the heavy door close behind her before plopping down beside Moran while he finished his smoke.

Sebastian cocked his head and seemed to genuinely ponder it for a moment before giving a little shrug, "Maybe it's like the 'ground floor,' it gets a name instead of a number?"

Molly hummed vaguely, letting them lapse into a companionable silence. When she first met Moran, she had not—in the slightest—thought she would ever be more than a nervous demi-hostage in his presence, never mind dear friends. Sebastian Moran, Molly had realized at some point, might even be her first real, adult friend. And that was certainly something to take comfort in. And, despite being an assassin or hitman or whatever he was properly called, Molly believed firmly that Moran was a good man. Perhaps one of the better ones she had had the privilege of meeting in her life.

Molly often imagined Sebastian Moran might have been a John Watson in another life. Or, perhaps, John Watson might have been a Sebastian Moran. (There was something about John that sometimes made her think he might have made a better Sebastian than Sebastian. Something in the way John smiled when he was well and truly pissed off.)

There were a lot of similarities between the two men, really. They were both loyal soldiers. They had both returned to London in war torn ruins of themselves with no family to turn to, no one to lean on. (It was something she and Moran could understand about one another; the aloneness in a city of millions, the aloneness in a room full of "friends," the aloneness in a flat that didn't properly feel like home.) As Molly understood it, John had found Sherlock quite quickly after his return; a miracle, really. Sebastian, she knew, had not been nearly so fortunate. Sebastian had been homeless for nearly a year (just about constantly piss drunk for over half of that) before Jim plucked him off the streets. Molly could see some of the ways Jim had twisted Sebastian up—the knots looked very much like the ones dear old Jim was slowly tying in her.

Of course, Sebastian Moran might have also been a dog in another life. She was often hard pressed not to compare him to a retired working dog. He followed his humans (Molly and Jim) about like a second shadow. Content in silence, content to wait, content to stay by their sides. But the minute Jim gave him a job, he came to life. Single minded, determined, focused even beyond what Molly had ever seen of Sherlock Holmes on a case. Sebastian liked to take his shoes off at every chance he got and laze about on her living room floor, too. Actually, he more often than not chose to sit on the floor, even if comfy chairs were readily available. She suspected it was some sort of sensory self therapy as he liked to rub his feet or hands against the carpets when he sat—she was fairly certain he didn't even properly notice it.

He was also impossibly easy to bribe with treats (custard creams were always a sure bet).

But, like all working dogs, Sebastian had but one master and that was unquestionably James Moriarty. Molly knew this, even though the knowledge hadn't been properly tested yet. She just knew, deep down, that if Jim ever sicced Moran on her, no matter how deep their friendship, Sebastian would pull that trigger. She wasn't even really upset by the idea anymore—hadn't been nearly upset as she should have been when she very first realized it.

"Your lunch break's nearly done."

Molly hummed.

"You've not had anything to eat."

Again, Molly hummed, staring off into the distance. She caught him giving her a dirty look from the corner of her eye before he leaned to pull something from his pocket, plopping it in her lap with a grumble and a deep drag from his smoke.

Molly evaluated the bounty of vending machine crisps, handful of rather battered chocolate kisses, and slightly squished protein bar he'd dumped into her lap. The fit of badly suppressed giggles really couldn't be helped and certainly wasn't stopped by the gentle elbow to her ribs from her generous donor of "lunch." She did, of course, eat every bit of the less than balanced meal.

Someday—a day that loomed in her future with more certainty than anything else in her life—she would find herself staring down the barrel of Moran's favorite pistol (he would have the decency to look her in the eye at the end, she was sure). But she wouldn't die today and she wouldn't die alone. No, she would die tomorrow or the next day or the next and in the company of a friend. And really, wasn't that a blessing few could count on?


	3. Chapter 3

_Why did people think Mr. Magnussen was a normal man—was remotely human?_ It was a question that haunted her constantly in his presence. Molly understood full well why people didn't immediately know Jim Moriarty was a villain of the highest order; Jim could play normal quite well—she had three dates worth of utterly normal to prove it. But Mr. Magnussen? He did not really play at anything. He was simply himself, always. And that made his ability to move so easily about the world even more unnerving. Jim had to hide his loose screws, hide his malicious darkness else he'd be locked up in an instant. But Magnussen put his evil right out for all the world to see and instead of being carted off to a tiny, dark cell to live out his terrifying life, he was hailed as a genius entrepreneur, a brilliant businessman—a great and humble man, even. All of which would have been completely laughable if even just the thought of the man didn't make Molly break into a cold sweat.

The every day dead eyes of Mr. Magnussen were a thousand times worse than Jim Moriarty's furious, twisted gaze when he was properly pissed. Molly was fairly certain she'd stopped breathing for a long moment after Magnussen's gaze had turned to her that first time. His hands had been sweaty (were constantly, forever damp) and there was something about his touch that made her skin absolutely crawl. She suspected he knew this and enjoyed making her uncomfortable as when he shook her hand, he held it for much longer than necessary, pulling her in and clapping his other hand around her captured one, always chatting idly for what never ceased to feel like eternity before he finally relented with a disgusting little grin.

Magnussen, as it turned out, was where most of her delivered blackmail came from. He also owned just about every news outlet in the UK, as far as she could tell (even the ones that were constantly arguing with each other). So, while Jim faffed off to do Lord knows what in "Eastern Europe" (because that really narrowed it down), Molly had been left with Magnussen. He was, Jim had told her, an "important person." And after working for Magnussen for not even a full week, Molly was dead certain he was one of the "others" Jim sometimes mentioned ever so vaguely in passing.

Magnussen's import, however, did not make him any less inexplicably creepy. She could never quite put her finger on it, but there was certainly something completely off about the man. She had tried to convince herself otherwise in her first days working for him but her mind had refused to budge on the matter. Instead, every time she tried to brush off the skin crawling unease his presence created, her mind supplied her with images of Mike Stamford in his place. Even with sweaty palms and glassy eyes and being not quite handsome, if Mike Stamford had smiled at her or complimented how perfectly her hands moved (an odd but frequent compliment she received from Magnussen), Molly knew without a shadow of a doubt, she would not find her bones chilled as they were with every breath Magnussen took.

She could tell right off that he hadn't been born into the immense power he held now—hadn't been born into any sort of power or wealth. He'd made his empire—whatever it was in its total—himself. He wore it well, but she could see the little gaps here and there; the difference between a nice suit and a well tailored suit. There was something rather awkward about the way he moved, the way he didn't quite seem to know how to hold his hands when they weren't tucked into his pockets, the way he acted as if he owned every room he walked into yet couldn't quite _completely_ erase the habit of insecurity. He had cut out so much of himself over the years, Molly did not think the bits that remained could be called human.

And yet worryingly, Molly found she had fleeting moments of… understanding with Magnussen. Some part of her knew she had been started down a path that would one day either lead her to a shallow grave or to become a new Magnussen. Though, she supposed, each was a different sort of death and she couldn't help but wonder—rather frequently—if she didn't prefer the shallow grave to a future as a dead eyed creature like Magnussen. Molly had thought to keep her uneasy observations to herself but—really—she should have known better.

"We are not so different, Miss Hooper." Magnussen said one day, relaxed on a rich leather sofa in his office. Molly looked up from her paperwork, unnerved to realize Magnussen had most likely been watching her work at her desk in the corner for some time.

He had been rather contemplative since Mr. Taylor's departure. The man—Taylor—was at least mildly important. He took care of quite a bit of Jim's shipping needs and she'd worked with him several times to make sure her acquisitions were safely delivered, he also often brought buyers to Jim's attention and in Jim's absence, he'd been reporting regularly to Magnussen. Mr. Taylor was also a rather terrible gossip and quite enjoyed making sport of her—she doubted very much he knew she was the thief who acquired his precious goods and not a lowly courier, though she wasn't entirely sure that would improve the man's tongue where she was concerned. She could at least take some comfort in knowing that the gossipy creature had the habit of talking badly of just about everyone he knew so, even if the behavior reminded her of the not-so-good days at Bart's, at least she was not alone in his barbed tongue.

"Sir?" She questioned hesitantly—always, _always_ wary of her words around the man.

"On the good days they ignore us completely—make us begin to think we're ghosts, drab wallpaper, background noise. On the bad days… they laugh." He stood and oozed across the room into what she had come to consider "her" work space even if the boarders were largely imaginary and the space itself existed within his grand office. He put his now empty crystal tumbler down on her desk with a precise sort of thunk, then straightened and looked her dead in the eye, his little smirk in place, "Would you like to learn how to own the world, Miss. Hooper?"

Molly hesitated, he continued, his eyes drifting about the room as he spoke.

"So much better than ruling. Ruling requires… well, _rules_. And inevitably, _s_ ome sort of accountability—even if it's simply to a mob of pitchfork wielding peasants. It's why no one man can rule the entirety of the world—not for long, at least. Owning, I find, is much more complete—much less… messy." His eyes flicked back to her, fixing her on the spot, "I believe you may have a hidden talent for owning, Miss Hooper. I believe you may learn to quite enjoy turning their laughter into fear—might already have a taste for it."

Her treacherous mind jumped at the chance to flash across her consciousness the evolution of every target of her blackmail deliveries from cocky, unrepentant man to trembling, frightened boy. Magnussen was right—she already had a taste for it.

Molly looked up, met his terrifying gaze evenly and gave a slight nod, "You know… I rather think I would."


	4. Chapter 4

Billy Wiggins was one of her Strays (as Jim called them). He'd once been a member of Sherlock's homeless network—which explained why he was rather good at taking odd orders without half as much questioning as one might expect—but she hadn't discovered that little fun fact until well into their acquaintance. (She had promptly told Wiggins it would be best to never mention his past ties to Sherlock again—least of all if there was even the faintest chance Jim might have ears or eyes about. Molly was never entirely certain how Jim would react to those that had been close to Sherlock Holmes and she'd rather not watch him put a bullet in Wiggins.) They had met during one of her narrower escapes; gotten to talking while she waited out the police in a seedy drug den.

She hadn't been surprised to learn he was rather a brilliant chemist, even if his brain was a bit crispy round the edges from his recreational use of the science.

"Ya don't seem surprised, miss." He said, bleary eyed and still mostly high, curled up on against the wall of the narrow, filthy hall, barely managing to hold himself upright despite the fact that he was apparently supposed to be guarding the place, "Most say summit. 'What's a brain like yours doin' in a place like this' sorta thing." She thinks he might be trying to make a joke, but he's too far gone to have proper command of his tone.

Molly had simply shrugged from her seat opposite, her head tipped back against the wall, her arms around her spread knees, her boot covered feet firm on the floor, "You're not the first genius I've found in a place like this, not the first genius I've found ruining his gifts with that shite, either." And that was perhaps the exact moment Molly Hooper realized she wouldn't be able to leave the stranger alone to his fate.

She couldn't help Sherlock in his final days ( _But what could I need from you?_ echoed in her head, a cruel reminder that even in his darkest hour, he couldn't see a need for any ounce of her), but she sure as shit could offer this brand new idiot a helping hand.

It took time for Wiggins to (mostly) turn away from drugs. He was more like Sherlock than she'd been prepared for and their early days were filled with her sudden need to leave whatever room he occupied. He was observant, like Sherlock. Not to the full scale of the late detective but certainly well above average in his ability to deduce a situation. But perhaps most importantly, he shared Sherlock's dangerous boredom. Without something to do, without something to keep his mind going, he turned to drugs for distraction. It didn't help that his self esteem was rather ghastly and his family situation was something that had turned the poor man into a puddle of tears on more than one occasion.

Molly couldn't fix his family (though she could make his prick father's life rather difficult in some impressively petty ways with her new underworld contacts). Molly couldn't single handedly replenish his long gone self esteem (though she could compliment his work and his taste in comfy jumpers and inform him when the bloke at Tesco wasn't just checking out eggs and milk). Molly could—however—give him work. And while it wouldn't guarantee Wiggins' sobriety, it certainly helped.

Molly Hooper was, after all, expanding her own side jobs. She would never be an international consulting criminal—had no desire to be. But Molly Hooper would forever and always require her own independence and her illicit activities were no exception. Jim even seemed rather pleased by her freelancing while Sebastian had taken to calling them "Nerds Incorporated" when they took over her living room for "R and D" for future endeavors. Wiggins' much more in depth understanding of organized crime certainly helped in many of her exploits.

The more her quiet reputation spread, however, the more Molly became aware of a certain… nickname that seemed to follow her about and absolutely _refused to die_. People didn't call her "Mrs. Moriarty" or "Miss" or by whatever alias Jim gave her as they had when she worked solely for Jim. Instead, people were quite regularly calling her "The Missus." Which Molly rather thought—as far as villain names went—it was pretty massively unimpressive. Molly had the sneaking suspicion the blame for the new title could be laid rather squarely at the feet of Billy Wiggins himself.

"Tea, Missus," he said in his heavy, endearing accent as he played at being posh and well mannered, setting her favorite cup with the birds and flowers printed across its white surface on the coffee table before her. (She wonders where the hell he got it from but given the audience, she doesn't ask.)

She tried not to sigh in exasperation.

Still, she supposed it was better than having to remember a false name or having Wiggins slip up with her real one. Returning her attention to the man whose house she and Wiggens had technically broken into in the time of darkness that was perhaps to early to be morning but to late to be night, she smiled and took up her tea.

"Thank you, Wiggy." He gives her a nod in return and she continues, trying not to be amused as always with his attempts to play at being some sort of stiff collared man servant or whatever it is he's got into his head his role is at these things, "Now, Mr. Peterson. By the look of these numbers," she opened a folder containing seemingly innocuous spread sheets, "you've been having a bit of trouble getting things through customs." She cuddles into the comfy chair in his unfamiliar living room, looking positively cozy with her large jumper and small hands curled around her large cuppa.

"Yes, miss." The slightly nervous mid-level smuggler—still in his jimjams, hair mussed, and quite disoriented by the hour and boozing he'd finished only hours ago—said, doing his best to be polite and avoid pissing himself.

They'd had dealings a few times before, mostly good—odd, but profitable and without a single bullet in sight. However, her reputation was growing and while she was considerably more forgiving than most would expect an organized criminal to be, a few fellows that had seen her kindness as weakness—and made no small noise on the matter—had recently gone missing. Well, "missing" seemed to be rather an understatement. They had quite disappeared off the face of the Earth as far as anyone could tell. More than just no body turning up—entire records of existence had been wiped out. Mr. Peterson himself had not been so vocal in his thoughts on The Missus (though he'd shared the missing gentlemen's sentiment—the dark underbelly of the world was not a place for kindness and smiles and cherry covered cardigans), he had however, been skimming rather a lot of smuggled goods to sell and barter for favors.

Molly nodded sympathetically, a sad little frown on her face, a furrow between her brows, "We all fall on hard times now and then."

Mr. Peterson tried not to breath out a massive sigh of relief. The dumb twit of a girl didn't know-

"Of course, it'd be a bit easier to believe you if these weren't showing up in Chinatown." She said as she smoothly pulled several photos from the same folder and placed the small stack on the coffee table before Mr. Peterson.

He didn't need to fish through them to know what they were; some of the goods that had "been lost to customs." He swallowed thickly, eyes locked on the pictures, unable to meet hers for a long beat before he looked up and began to babble through a series of lies that usually got him off the hook—or at least bought him a bit more time.

He was met only with a vague, gentle little smile as she simply patiently waited for him to finish rambling, sipping away calmly at her tea.

And eventually, there was quiet. Peterson knew how to cajole, knew how to manipulate, knew how to cater to the egos of violent criminals. This, on the other hand—this placid sweetness, he simply could not read. Was his fate already decided? Was she still making up her mind? Did she even care? Was she going to use this to blackmail him? (He'd heard she was quite good with blackmail. God, he hoped it was blackmail she planned for him.) He really and truly, for perhaps the first time in his adult life, had absolutely no idea what someone wanted from him. Honestly, he realized now, he had no idea what she wanted _at all_.

"Gotten it out of your system, then?" She asks into the suffocating silence, not at all effect by it. He simply nods, "Good. I suggest you make friends with someone in customs. From now on, if something gets 'hauled off by customs,' you'll need to show proof of a seizure." And with that, she seems to be finished with her business, handing Wiggins her cup and taking back the pictures to tuck into the folder she then slips into her sturdy and painfully plain messenger bag.

Startled, Mr. Peterson blurts words he immediately regrets, "That's it? What if I don't-" he choked himself off but it was too late.

The Missus turned to him with a soft smile and sharp eyes, "Then I'm afraid your career might hit a bit of a _dead end_." She gave a bit of a laugh at her own joke before her smile turned a bit dark, "Though, bit of personal advice for the future, Mr. Peterson; best not to ask questions you won't like finding the answers to."

And though the parting words made Mr. Peterson toss and turn the rest of the dark hours, Molly Hooper could only think of the one question she rather wish she'd never found the answer to:

 _What could I need from you?_

Nothing. Nothing at all.


	5. Chapter 5

While Sebastian Moran was probably Molly's first adulthood friend, Caroline had by far been Molly's longest friendship. Caroline and Molly had met at uni and were friends for a little over twelve years before Caroline just sort of up and left. Caroline was… an odd sort. She could play well at being all sorts of normal but when it was just the two of them, the weird came out in full force. It was probably what made them such good friends for so long. Instead of an odd look or an awkward silence when Molly made her rather infamous morbid jokes, Caroline would snicker right along with her. They could talk about death and decomposition and all sorts of interesting things over lunch without either having their apatite spoiled.

Despite all their years together, all the good and bad they'd shared with one another, Molly always felt as if Caroline kept a part of herself out of Molly's reach; hidden and off limits. Molly thought she might have caught glimpses of it whenever they people watched at the park and Caroline's made of stories on those they observed had more than a gentle ring of truth to them; or when Caroline would get frustrated, her temper snapping, manic energy filling her friend up to the brim, a certain look in her eye that made Molly think maybe—just maybe—Caroline might be very capable of not letting her leave the room alive.

And then, of course, there were the changes in appearance. For the first two years they knew each other, Caroline always looked like Caroline: Large black rim glasses, auburn hair (in a terribly messy bun or down with a little curl at the ends but always with the perfectly straight edged bangs), red lips, jean jacket (that Molly often found fun little patches for), leggings, and a brightly colored comfy dress underneath. Sometimes, when they had study sleep overs, Caroline would steal one of Molly's comfy jumpers to wear over her dress in lieu of her jacket to wear to their favorite breakfast place. It was comfortable. It was familiar. Until the day Caroline showed up to their weekend people watching spot twenty minutes late in practical office worked kitten heels, fishnets, a pencil skirt, silk blouse, posh coat, _brown eyes_ , and _platinum blonde hair_ in a stylish bob.

For a long few minutes Molly just stared. There was not one bit of her familiar Caroline in the woman sat next to her—not a single drop. But Molly had known the minute she sat down it was Caroline. She tried to put together a compliment—Caroline really did look amazing—but all that tumbled out of her mouth when she finally maned to open it was a squeaky, "What?"

The woman looked over with a cool and sophisticated air and for one perilous moment, Molly thought she might actually be mistaken. Maybe this wasn't actually Caroline. All visual evidence said this very much _was not_ Caroline. Oh god, and now she'd made this posh woman think she'd had the misfortune of sharing a park bench with a crazy person. Worse, Caroline, in the year and a half they'd taken to people watching, had never been more than a handful of minutes late. And if this wasn't Caroline, twenty minutes late but with a fantastic makeover as an excuse, maybe her best friend was in trouble. Maybe she'd been hurt or harassed on her way here. Maybe she was _dead_. Neither one of them had mobiles—neither one of them really had any people to call besides each other and they were so expensive, it was hardly worth it when they quite comfortably oscillated between practically living with each other and Caroline's occasional vanishing acts. Did Caroline even have Molly as her emergency contact?

The panic came and went in a flash. Because in the next moment Caroline blinked and Molly was certain again; this was Caroline, blonde hair, brown eyes, and all.

"Job interview?" Molly tried again.

"Why would you think that?" Caroline asked, and Molly was rather relieved to hear Caroline's voice coming out of this near-stranger's face.

"Office clothes, new look; posh job interview, yeah?"

Caroline hummed, considering as she took a sip from her coffee (Molly hadn't even noticed it), "Something like that."

It was strange and mysterious and met with exactly no further explanation; but it didn't put a dent in their people watching. The next day Caroline was back to her familiar Caroline self (complete with past the shoulders auburn hair and blue-green eyes). Molly would have been content to forget about the whole thing—simply write it off as a little one off of extra weird on top of Caroline's every day weird.

But it kept happening.

Not every day. Not even every people watching weekend or even every month. There was no rhyme or reason or schedule to Caroline's occasional full body transformations. Sometimes it would be months between incidences, other times there were four in a single week.

At first, it was deeply unnerving and made Molly nervous about how little she actually knew about her best friend. But like so much in her life; Molly gradually adapted to it. It slowly became just another odd aspect of Caroline. Molly even gave little compliments here and there when she spotted aspects of one look or another that looked particularly good on Caroline.

 _I think the longer hair suites you better._

 _You should keep that dress—we can have a posh girl's night after finals._

 _Those shoes are adorable, you should keep them._

 _That's a good colour on you._

And so on and so on and so on until Molly hardly even noticed it anymore. It seemed to make their friendship stronger somehow. And for a while, Molly thought she might have found a friend that would stay by her side for the rest of their lives.

But all things must change and the good always comes to an end.

Months before Molly's slow descent into cigarettes and alcohol and pills, Caroline pulled one of her usual vanishing acts. Only this time, instead of days or weeks or even over a month (though that had only happened once before), Caroline was gone for years. It wasn't until two weeks into her new post at St. Bart's (three weeks since she'd taken her very last pill) that Caroline decided to swan back into Molly's life.

It wasn't fair that Molly looked worn down and just generally rather terrible while Caroline looked pristine even in her nurse scrubs (though Molly could see the manic edges fizzling about the seams). Their friendship was rekindled—though it was sometimes somewhat strained and there were more sharp edges to Caroline than Molly remembered—and they even added a third to their group; Meena from oncology. Caroline didn't always seem to exactly enjoy Meena—perhaps "tolerated" was the closest polite term for what existed between Caroline and Meena. It really didn't help that at some point in their group friendship, Caroline had taken to obsessing over a _hedge_ of all things. And "obsessing" was by no means an understatement. Caroline could hardly go a single interaction with Molly without going into a small murder-rant about this bloody stupid hedge.

Molly tried to listen. Tried to understand—was pretty sure this hedge wasn't actually a hedge but more likely a bloke or a neighbor or _something_ because Caroline would often slip up and call the thing a "he." But when Caroline plopped down across from her in the break room—didn't even seem to notice Molly had been crying her eyes out over Sherlock's most recent deductions of her apparently gay boyfriend—and launched straight into her stupid bloody hedge; Molly snapped. She would forget the majority of her rant as blind hurt poured out of her but later, when she learned and knew, she would remember all to vividly the final words she said to Caroline:

"You can throw it off the bloody roof for all I care; just stop bitching about your stupid bloody hedge!"

She stormed off to the ladies, shaking with hurt and rage. She paced in the locker room for a few minutes before she'd calmed down enough to cup some cool water to her face—holding it there for a while, wondering briefly if it'd be entirely possible to drown like that—before regret crept into her gut. But by the time she'd dried off and returned to the break room, Caroline was gone.

The next time she met Caroline, it would be Molly Hooper in an unrecognizable new skin and Caroline who bore her true face. Next time she met Caroline, Molly Hooper would not immediately know her friend as she once had; it would take time and still, she would doubt. The next time she met Caroline, her name would not be Caroline, it would be the name of a god.

And it would suite her.


End file.
